Days
by Nara Bluestar
Summary: Life is made of little moments strung together. These are a few bits and pieces- a collection of standalone ultra-short stories.
1. Muzz: Engineering Trainer

**A/N:** This is a series of little stories, related only in that they involve characters from my other stories, but it shouldn't be necessary to have read any of the rest of it to understand these (I _hope_ they're intelligible by themselves, anyway...). I may add on to this once in a while with a few more tidbits.

* * *

Muzz: Engineering Trainer

_-Nearly ten years ago-_

--

_Now is probably not the best time to be reconsidering_, Galmak thought. He peeked one eye cautiously over the log. The fuse looked… well, the fuse looked gone. He ducked for cover just in time to avoid the blast of heat and smoke racing outward across the ground as a massive fireball launched straight into the air.

"Whoooee!" Muzz coughed, standing up beside the orc. The very top of the goblin's carrot-orange hair was singed and the tip of his long, green nose boasted a blackened smudge. "That's not bad, not bad. You say you can make a bunch more o' those suckers?"

"I didn't say I could make a _bunch_ more," Galmak said doubtfully. "I'm… uh, slightly short on gold and I don't have the parts for too many."

"Parts, eh? Parts aren't a problem. I'll getcha the parts. Just show me how to make 'em too and we'll really get going. I can see this being the beginning of some beautiful destruction." Muzz grinned and sighed with a faraway look in his eye.

Free parts for building explosives to his heart's content? "Well, in that case…" The orc stuck out his hand and the goblin snapped abruptly out of his scheming.

"Deal," they both said and grinned.

The sound of hooves pounding on dirt drew nearer and suddenly a young tauren careened out of the undergrowth, flailing wildly at the bushes snagging his armor.

"Did I miss it?" he panted. "Oh. Oh, I did." He snorted dejectedly at the nearby patch of scorched ground and bomb bits.

"I told you you would if you left," Galmak said, raising an eyebrow at his friend. "The fuses aren't _that_ long, Vek."

"You couldn't just… pause it?"

"Pause it? Pause it? You can't pause those babies! Those babies are unpausable!" Muzz crowed. "Maybe that should be our slogan. 'They're unpausable'? No… no, I guess not."

"Unstoppable?" Chetvek suggested thoughtfully.

"Unstoppable," the goblin repeated. "Eh, we'll let the marketers come up with that. We're the destructioners! We don't need any slogan besides 'let 'er rip!' or maybe, 'cover yer asses!'"

"Understand I have to see a profit from this," Galmak crossed his arms and eyed the excited goblin. "I've got training to think about. Old Vazario won't teach me anything more until I've paid him. And I'm, uh, a little behind on that."

"That old bastard," Muzz snorted. "I could teach him a thing or two. Anyway, _you're_ talking to _me_ about profit? Whaddaya think my middle name is? It's Zhxugx. You know what that means in Goblin? It means 'splendid.' And how do you think I made my first ever profit? Oooh, yeah, that's right." Muzz nodded in satisfaction and kicked a charred chunk off the log.

Galmak was none the wiser, but what the hell. "Alright then. Vek, you in too?"

"In? But I didn't really do anything. I don't blow things up very well, Galmak. They never seem to blow up right." The tauren shook his shaggy mane and puffed out a resigned sigh. "I really think I'm better off sticking to my herb picking."

"You don't have to blow anything up," Galmak reassured him.

"Leave that to the prooo-fessionals," Muzz added.

"You can just stick around and watch," Galmak finished.

Chetvek grinned. "Well, sure then. I don't mind watching things blow up. As long as they're things that don't mind blowing up," he added with a frown.

"My bombs don't mind," the orc said. "And the rest of the stuff we'll evaluate on a case-by-case basis."

"Case-by-case basis sounds profitable," Muzz agreed. "No wasting materials that way. We'll have ourselves a profitable business in no time and you'll have your gold for training! Then maybe we can move on to bigger things!"

"But where do all your skills come in?" Galmak asked suspiciously. "I thought you said you could teach Vazario a few things?"

"Well, I could… if I wanted to," Muzz said slyly.

"How about teaching me?"

"You don't have the gold!" the goblin said gleefully.

Chetvek blinked at him. "But aren't you business partners now? Isn't he going to have to teach you how to build his bombs?"

The goblin muttered and looked up askance at Galmak. "Alright, alright. Case-by-case basis, like you said! No deep secrets! None of my special formulae! No prototyped, patented, or premium products! Just the basics. In exchange for teaching me to build those magnificent little packages of destruction!"

Why should an engineer pay for his training when he could build explosives for it instead? "Now you've really got a deal," Galmak grinned.

* * *


	2. Brother

* * *

Brother

-_Nearly twenty years ago_-

--

This time _he_ was going to get it. This time, for once, Hyara was going to give her brother the comeuppance he deserved and the joke would be on him. She snickered to herself and crept closer, being careful not to knock a hoof on a stone and make noise.

Gheris was sitting just outside with his back turned and his big blue tail swaying, and he had all that armor on. She didn't usually like it when he wore that armor. It meant he was all cold and clanky when he picked her up and twirled her. But today she was glad because now _he_ would be the one who was cold! She held the slippery jar of water tightly so as not to spill it and she giggled again, quietly.

Hyara got close to him and then stopped, getting ready. She'd have to be fast or his tail would hit her and he'd know she was there. She suppressed another giggle as his tail swung away, then she darted in and dumped the jar right over his head. Gheris jumped straight up with a yell and spun around. Hyara squealed in triumph, dropped the jar, and ran as fast as she could make her hooves go toward the forest outside Azure Watch.

"Oh no, you don't!" Gheris roared.

She could tell he was laughing, but she screamed and kept running anyway. He'd catch her, of course, like he always did, except when he let her get away. Hyara didn't think he'd let her get away this time, though. Unless she could make it to her tree! She put out another burst of speed and caught one of the tree's lower branches, swinging herself up. She couldn't make it very high, but most draenei had a hard time climbing trees at all. Gheris would never be able to catch her with his big hooves and his clanky armor!

He stopped under her branch, panting a little, and glared up at her. She could tell he was trying not to smile.

"You little squirrel, come down from there! Look what you did to my hair!" He leaned forward and mussed his hands all through his wet hair, making it stand up wildly in all directions. Hyara laughed and knocked her hooves against the tree trunk.

"I'm staying right here until you promise not to do anything back to me, and then go away!" she called.

Her brother took a casual look around. "Hey, this looks like a good place to camp. Maybe I'll just spend the night out here." He sat down on the ground right beneath her dangling hooves, leaned against the tree, and started to snore theatrically. Hyara groaned in frustration.

"You can't sleep here," she said. "Bears will get you."

He opened one eye and looked up at her. "Bears won't like all my metal."

"I don't like all your metal either," she pouted. "Why'd you have to leave?"

This time Gheris opened both eyes. "Well, I didn't exactly have to leave, little sister. And I didn't exactly want to either, in a lot of ways."

"Then why did you?"

"Because there are a lot of things that need doing in the world and not really very many people to help with them. I think someday you'll understand what I mean."

"But it means you left me here with just Mother and Father and Grandfather." Her lip was quivering and she tried to hold it still.

"That's all, huh? They love you just as much as I do."

"But… but I can't pour water on Grandfather's head," she said in a small voice.

Gheris's deep laughter boomed through the trees. "No, but you can come to Exodar and pour water on my head any time you want, little sister."

She smiled and let him catch her as she swung down from the branch. She didn't really mind his armor so much. Maybe she could get used to it. After all, it was still just her brother underneath all that.

* * *


	3. Mysteries

* * *

Mysteries

There was so much dust in the air, but Merok loved it. He'd always known the comfort written words could bring, even when the words were in Orcish, but _these_ books… These books were ancient and many of them were written in his own tongue, in Draenei, telling him things about his own people he'd never imagined. Some of them were from the world his ancestors had come from, a real, visceral connection to the people whose spirits had carried him through so many years of slavery to orcs.

Nayuula was muttering to herself over in the map corner again, probably trying to decide if it all ought to be moved to the other side of the shop where the Ashenvale sun didn't slant in just so in the mid-afternoon. Merok picked up another armload of books, carefully as if they were made of crystal, and deposited them near the shelf they were to go on. Moving the books around was tedious and heavy work, but Nayuula liked to keep the shop fresh and different from time to time and Merok was just the man for the heavy lifting.

"Merok," she called, tilting her head back and squinting up at a browned and dusty map pinned to the highest part of the wall. He came over and stood silently behind her, waiting. She had her own ways of doing things, which sometimes included getting his attention and then forgetting about him for a few minutes. He'd quickly learned that didn't mean she didn't want him to be _right there_ when she finally remembered again.

"Do you know what that is?" She pointed one long, blue finger upward.

He cleared his throat before answering. "It's a map."

Anyone else might have taken offense at that, but just as Merok had come to understand some things about Nayuula, she too knew a few things about him.

"Exactly," she said. "Let's get it down."

Merok shrugged and pulled a stool over to the wall.

"Touch it at the edges!"

He was holding it just right and he knew it, so he didn't let her shrieking phase him. He pulled the last tiny pin carefully and stepped down. Nayuula hummed and bounced around the shop for a minute, clearing a space. Merok stood patiently waiting until she beckoned him to a table and he laid the map out.

"See," she said with her tail lashing and her hands on her hips. "It's a map. That's all I know too."

Merok examined it more closely now that he could and he saw that she was right. It was someplace, but it wasn't any place he'd ever seen. He'd traveled fairly extensively throughout Horde territory with his orcish masters over his young life, had even been through some Alliance territory, and Merok didn't think this map showed anywhere in Azeroth.

"Draenor?" he said hesitantly. He remembered very little of Draenor and tried hard to remember nothing at all.

She shook her head. "Not Draenor. No words, no cardinal directions, not even any letters. The symbols are ours… there's a town, about the size of Forest Song. There's a temple. There's a village."

"Where did it come from?" Merok whispered, leaning closer and gazing with wide glowing eyes.

"My father had it on Draenor. I remember seeing it once as a little girl and I found it again amongst his things after we came here. Out of sight, out of mind," she said, gesturing carelessly to the high spot on the wall that the map had occupied.

It was a mystery he wanted to solve. He stared at the tiny symbols, trying to imagine the places they depicted and the people who'd lived there.

"Well, anyway." She waved a hand dismissively. "I'll ask…" She blushed slightly." I'll ask somebody I know next time he comes in, he might know what it is. Let's put it back for now so nobody thinks it's for sale." She bent to retrieve a book from the top of a pile and flipped it open carefully, then nodded absently and tucked it away on a shelf.

Merok frowned ever so slightly, not wanting to put the map back up on the wall where he'd likely never get to see it clearly again.

"Nayuula," he said. The draenei woman turned around and cocked her head inquisitively. "If we put it behind the desk no one will think it is for sale, but people will be able to see it. If someone comes in who knows what it is, they may comment."

"Good thinking!" she said, snapping her fingers and examining the wall behind the desk, already papered in other, much newer, maps. "You can do that, Merok. Touch them at the edges!"

A faint smile tugged at his lips as he began clearing a spot on the wall for the ancient map. That parchment had once meant something to people's lives, had once depicted reality. Maybe his own ancestors had lived there. Maybe someday someone would come in and know what that place was or even be able to tell them something about it. It was a mystery, like so much of their past. A mystery, just as his own people had been to him until so recently. He was still working to solve that mystery every day.

* * *


	4. Dastardly Deeds

**A/N**: My husband's warlock used with permission. Gnomes make me smile. :P

* * *

Dastardly Deeds

Nobody could stalk something quite like Split Fizzdrive could; or at least that's what he enjoyed telling himself. It was because of that very fact that he felt a slight pang of guilt right now, stalking his own kind, a fellow gnome: this gnome was not getting away, no matter how hard he tried. And at the moment, he wasn't trying at all because he didn't know he was being stalked.

Split mentally ran back over the briefing SI:7 had given him earlier that day. Target: Dauborius L. Mensch, warlock. That right there was just about enough to douse the tiny spark of guilt sizzling in Split's mind. They were a bad lot, warlocks, and they deserved to be targets. This guy in particular was harmless-looking enough on the face of it: bright green hair like many gnomes had, teased up into a point on top of his head. Matching long green beard poofing down over his chest like a mirror-image of his hair. Violently chartreuse robes that could have passed for a mage's robes… had Split's specially-tuned device of ingenious gnomish engineering not been able to sniff the fel-taint at fifty paces. This guy was a menace, a walking bomb of demonic energy, and Split was all set to defuse it.

He crept carefully closer, inching like a turtle across the flagstones of Stormwind's deserted Trade District. It was so damned late no honest person should be out right now anyway, Split thought. Just the warlocks and the rogues.

Mensch was standing in the shadow of a building, fiddling with something about the size of a gnome's shoe. It flashed every now and then as he turned it in his hands, dully catching the light from the torches illuminating the square. Split couldn't tell what it was but he had to admit he was wary of getting too close until the other gnome put the thing away. He'd rather not have a demon inadvertently summoned on top of his stealthed head.

"Eeeehhh," Mensch said suddenly, making Split jump most unprofessionally. The green-haired gnome mumbled something else and whacked the object against the wall of the building. Split checked his surroundings one more time just to be sure they were still alone and then slipped a small vial of poison from a pocket. Night watch patrol wouldn't be around this way for another ten minutes; he'd made sure of that little scheduling detail earlier. The warlock was here to meet somebody like he always did, only to slip away into a shadowed alley within a few minutes of when the patrol would normally show up. Tonight he wouldn't be slipping away.

Poison applied to the tip of a dagger, Split moved into position only ten paces from the warlock. Mensch's contact should be showing up any minute now and the time would be right to strike quickly from the shadows at first one, then the other. Only the tiniest nick from the dagger would do it; Mensch and his buddy would be out cold before they could say gyrochronatom. Then Split would dump them off at SI:7, his job would be done, his pay would be forthcoming, and his landlord would stop yelling at him for another month. Easy.

A tall shadow detached from a nearby alleyway and melted toward the warlock. Mensch abruptly stopped scowling at the object in his hands and fairly bounced at the sight of the newcomer.

"Ouch!" Split heard him mutter, wincing. The warlock bent with the object in hand and… Split almost groaned aloud. The thing Mensch had been fussing with was indeed a shoe, and now he was putting it back on. So much for something deliciously sinister and dastardly, Split thought, unless it were a particularly demonic shoe.

"Here you are, Dauborius," the newcomer's voice whispered.

"Of course here I am, right where I always am, dolt," said the gnome's squeakier whisper. "You have it?"

"Of course I have it, just like I always have it," the other replied dryly. "Shoes giving you trouble?"

Mensch winced. "Alright, alright, Jerry. Maybe I should get some like yours, eh? Sandals, eh?" He looked down critically at the other's feet. "Look pretty stupid with the knee-high socks, though."

They did, Split could tell even in the dark, and he smirked. "Jerry" shifted uncomfortably.

"Well then, well then, hurry up already! I have things to be doing," Mensch said impatiently. The human obligingly pulled a package from a wide sleeve and handed it over. Mensch absently passed him a few coins in payment, his eyes intent on the package. Split was about to close in, but the warlock began to open the package and Split paused. He was not only a bit curious what was in it, something he could find out for himself once Mensch and his friend were snoozing on the ground, he was also curious to see what the warlock would do with whatever it was. He decided to bide his time a few more minutes and satisfy his curiosity.

"Impatient tonight, huh." Jerry's voice was a touch sardonic, watching the gnome rip the paper off the parcel. "What are you going to use them for this time? Not against Lord Bolvar again, I hope, they nearly caught you last time."

"No, no, no. This time… this time I shall take them to the orphanage. The orphans, I think, will appreciate them far more than Lord Bolvar." He laughed in a pitch that could have set dogs howling before he apparently remembered to keep quiet and clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Don't let the matron catch you. You're one of a kind, Dauborius; you'd be hard to replace if they ever decided to toss you in the Stockade."

One of a kind, indeed, Split thought in horror. This had to be a new low, even for a warlock. What did he have planned for the orphans? The rogue slithered closer through the shadows, making ready to slip a dagger into this monster and his pal.

"The matron won't catch me, sandals man!" Mensch said indignantly. "But the children will see them from their windows and maybe it will liven their night." He clutched the opened package lovingly to his chest, and now from his closer location Split could see what was in it.

Fireworks. Big ones, the illegal kind, that made all the wildest colors and most spectacular sparks. The warlock was going to give the orphans a fireworks show.

Split slipped away through the shadows on his way home, making a quick detour into Cathedral Square.

"Hey," he said quietly to the night watch patrol he found there, passing by the orphanage. "I think the patrol over in the Park needs some help with somethin'."

* * *


	5. Slivers of Light

**A/N**: Yes, I know, it's just a tiny snippet! I'm still caught up in other things (or not as caught up as I should be, as the case sometimes is). But anyway, here is a very small glimpse of a story familiar to some of you, seen from a different front, before I vanish again for a while.

*

Slivers of Light

___

"Because she's forgotten you," her voice hissed in the darkness, impatient and by this time annoyed. The low red flicker of flame beyond the barred door was enough to blind him and keep him in perpetual night. Full darkness, and his eyes could have adjusted.

"She hasn't," he replied with dogged weariness in a voice made hoarse by thirst. Water came to him only infrequently here.

The succubus stamped a hoof delicately but he heard no sound of another approach; she stayed where she was, likely sensing by now that her efforts were once again wasted. It was beyond him why she would come in here in the first place. He was filthy, the cell was filthy, the air was stale and close.

"She could die at any time," she said cruelly, and was finally rewarded with the reaction her other tactics had failed to elicit. The bulky shape huddled against the wall shifted. Dark hair fell around his face as his head lolled forward heavily. A rattling breath escaped him.

"He could grow tired of her today," the sayaad pressed. "She could be dying at this very moment. He has forgotten you down here and once she is dead, I will be the only one who remembers you. You need me, orc." Her voice was smooth and cool, like the running water he so desperately wanted. Her wings waved languidly and stirred the staleness in the cell like an imagined hint of fresh air. Her body warmed the chill darkness and made him think longingly of fire. The orc raised his head and stared toward the sound of her, seeing only a blur of shadow in the sputtering red light.

Everything she said was true. The eredar did not have an unlimited attention span. Eventually he could kill the draenei he used as his toy. Freedom was an impossible dream, death an imminent reality. The orc could secure at least a scrap of relief from this hell if only he granted what the sayaad wished. It was a simple thing, and under the circumstances even the woman he loved would think no less of him.

It was a fleeting thought, though, in the face of the small hope the succubus had inadvertently given him.

"You admit now she hasn't forgotten me," he insisted in stubborn triumph. "She's alive and she remembers. If she dies, come back. I promise you I won't care anymore and you can treat me however you want."

For a dozen heartbeats, only silence met him from the other side of the cell. There was no reading her face in the darkness, but the orc sensed a trace of anger in the fetid air.

"I am not like the eredar," the sayaad finally replied coldly. "You are foolish and she is foolish."

With an abrupt turn on her hoof and a swish of her wings, she left. The barred door slammed behind her, the outer wooden door thudded dully shut, and the red light snuffed to a vague glow outside. The orc slumped back against the icy stone wall and closed his eyes. An observer able to see in the dark might have marveled that a smile stretched across his broad, tired face.

He was foolish and she, his love, was foolish. They were both foolish together. She remembered him and longed for him the way he longed for her. The succubus had been more generous with information than ever before.

It was the last time the sayaad approached him in that way.

*

___


	6. Argus

**A/N:** This is an idea I've been wanting to pursue for a long time now, but I kept telling myself not to write it because it would take my focus off Bloodscry. So I compromised - I wrote this fragment and I'm including it here. I may eventually pursue this further and turn it into something bigger, because I think the idea of ancient Argus and the flight of the draenei is fascinating and underdeveloped in lore. But for those of you who care, don't worry - I'm still focused on getting Bloodscry finished!

* * *

*

Argus

__

The soft swish and whir of the door opening jarred him from his reverie and he looked up to see one of only two people who wouldn't bother with at least a perfunctory knock to announce themselves. The visitor's pale face was flushed with a smile and Kil'jaeden laughed sonorously.

"I'll think you've been seeing some woman in a back corridor if you don't tell me what this is about."

Velen chuckled, but he shook his head ruefully as he poured tea and took the single chair that stood before the desk. "Nothing so interesting, I'm afraid, when you put it that way." The steam clouded his face for a moment as he took a sip and then he met his friend's eyes again with a smile. "We've had a report today from Guruyaal. It seems their silence of the past week was nothing more sinister than a malfunctioning transmitter."

Kil'jaeden allowed an answering smile to touch his eyes and he sighed in relief. "Nothing to be concerned over then. You see, old friend? All they are in need of is more technicians as usual. We really must find a better way to entice people to stay out there," he mused.

Velen watched him closely from behind another sip of tea. The colony moon of Guruyaal, several planets distant and the nearest settlement to Argus, had indeed broken its worrisome silence today. The communiqué had been official, dry and routine, telling of the recalcitrant transmitter and its delayed repair, but it had contained a single code word which Velen had established himself only two weeks before. Guruyaal was gone. Kil'jaeden knew it. Velen set down the empty teacup and rose with a sigh that he was careful to keep the weight of his heart from.

"Well," he said. "Less interesting matters call me away."

His friend grimaced in sympathy and waved a hand at the light-displays littering his desk. "Of course. But it is always a pleasant surprise when you come by."

As Velen reached the door, Kil'jaeden called after him and he turned.

"Velen… Don't worry so much. I don't mean to lecture you, old friend, but if you would only relax for a moment, I think you would see that the future holds only great things for us." His voice was melodic and beautiful, almost hypnotic. It was no wonder people followed him.

Velen nodded pensively and then he smiled. "I know it does. I trust you, old friend."

The double lie stuck in his throat like the dregs of lukewarm tea as the door swished shut behind him.

***

Euura's delicate nose crinkled when she saw who was occupying her husband's time and she came into the office to hover rudely just behind the interloper. Teleum of course noticed her immediately and he suppressed a smile at the unambiguous look on her face.

"I'll look into it," he said firmly to the man in front of his desk. "At this point I have far more pressing matters than a few modifications to the city's evacuation routes."

"It is Lord Archimonde's own suggestion," the other man insisted, the trace of a sneer crossing his arrogant features. "You can't be suggesting there is anything more important than the city's safety. Your constituency, pathetic though it is, wouldn't like to hear that."

"I said I'd look into it," Teleum repeated tightly.

"He certainly has more important things to attend to than _you_," Euura cut in, making her husband cringe slightly. His smile was unmistakable now though.

The look her statement attracted from the other man dripped venom. "Watch yourself, bitch," he hissed for her ears only as he brushed past her out the door. Euura only raised her ashy eyebrows and smiled sweetly.

"I take it you don't think much of him," Teleum said dryly as his wife took the newly vacated seat.

"Sarzuun is the worst kind of flunky, even to those who use him: a blind and foolish one," she said dismissively, and then her voice dropped to a murmur. "Can I speak?"

"If you couldn't, I would already be in prison."

"Kil'jaeden was in touch with Guruyaal before the transmitter was ostensibly fixed."

Teleum leaned back and ran a hand through his silvery hair. "Does Velen know?"

She nodded. "I've told him."

"I suppose this leaves little doubt."

She frowned and drummed her long fingers on the desktop. "It still leaves a great many doubts about what in the name of the Crystal is going on. He had better start giving us some answers before the month is out."

"If he doesn't, we'll follow anyway," Teleum answered firmly. "Velen has always been… the stable one. I would far rather trust our future to him than either Kil'jaeden or Archimonde."

"I suppose," Euura sighed doubtfully. "But everyone's been talking a bit madly lately. You'd think the world might end this month."

"Keep your head down," he told her. "I hate having you right in Kil'jaeden's offices now. This feels dangerous, Euura."

"Politics as usual," she answered lightly, but inwardly she felt foreboding gathering closer than ever. The air in the council halls crackled with an ominous, anticipatory energy anymore. The sense of something looming in the immediate future was almost thick enough to drink.

They exchanged a few more words and then Euura glided coolly out of her husband's office, on her way to attend the day's other routine business.

By the end of the month, the world had ended and they'd fled forever.

* * *


	7. Hope Again

* * *

**A/N:** For those of you who know what I'm talking about, I swear my head isn't just completely crammed full of babies so that's all I can think about! This is, obviously, an 'origin story' and it's been floating around in my brain, unwritten but pretty well formed, for a loooong time now. Long before my own stuff happened, if you catch my meaning. I know; excuses, excuses.

* * *

Hope Again

*

_Dreamfoil, sungrass, a shaving of briarthorn_. She stirred the precious mixture with a steady hand and watched it carefully until it had reached the consistency of thin gruel. There could be no waste, no starting over. All these herbs were dearly bought and hard to come by, but Serlah did what she could because she had to. Sister Anna was a good woman and gods knew _she_ did what she could, but it simply wasn't worthwhile sparing more than one magic healer on a camp full of filthy, lazy, murderous orcs. The mixture began to simmer gently and she removed the pot from the flame, covering it quickly with a rag soaked in cool water. She left it in the window of the tiny hovel where the sun would warm it gradually for a few hours and the sweet, clean scent would drift away to be buried beneath the other odors of the camp.

She remembered how exotic and unfamiliar Azeroth's herbs had seemed at first, even young as she'd been when she'd first come here. Mother had taught her well about every growing thing on Draenor and Serlah had soaked it all in as firebloom in the sun. The herbs here had felt strange. They did new things, or did old things in odd ways. She ruined many brews at first and she'd been punished for it, even as her mother had ruined just as many. In the end, though, she'd come to know them as old friends, each with its own personality – this one cranky, liking to keep to itself except for a grudging tolerance of this other in small doses. This one friendly with every other herb and adding a lightness to all it touched. Another, giving a measure of healing to everything to which it was added. Mother would have been proud of what she had accomplished, _had_ been proud, but Serlah was glad she was not here to see her now in this place. This blighted spot on the grassy beauty of the Arathi Highlands.

Because it was a terrible place. People died here every day, sometimes because there wasn't enough healing to go around for all those who were sick, but sometimes because their heads had been beaten in or their bodies tormented beyond endurance and not even the little healing she or Sister Anna could give could help them. And sometimes they died because they didn't want to live. Serlah had felt that creep coldly into her heart before, several times, and she was thankful that she'd still been able to know terror at that feeling. Each time, Lurigk and her herbs had called her back.

_Ah, Mother, it's better you didn't live to see this_. And there it was again, the horrible thought: that death was better. Mother couldn't have lived here, though, probably would have died in the camp in just the way she'd died in the hills. She would never have submitted to either the humans or the lethargy.

The memory, and the blood, still seemed very fresh sometimes.

*

Lurigk's days were not as full of activity. What work could a man do in the camps and not draw attention or suspicion upon himself and his family? His skills as a leatherworker had been useful once, but these days there was little enough leather clothing among the orcs, and less reason to repair it. Most could barely bring themselves to care enough to dress themselves in the morning. Rather than become like so many of the others, he did what he could to help his mate. He let her purpose become his own.

They never spoke about what their lives had become for more than half a decade now, and never about what they had been before. This was life now, plain and simple. Everything before this had been wrong, must have been wrong, because it had led them to this. They had given everything to something foul and twisted and now they must live in foul and twisted remorse. He tried not to think of this very often either, but it was unavoidable at times. At those times he knew he teetered closest to joining his brethren who spent their days staring stupidly at the walls or performing any act imaginable for a jug of sour ale from a human guard.

And so he crushed herbs to dust patiently, quietly, not even really living anymore for a day in the future when he might do something else in some other place. His life had become this and there was no more future to wonder about.

"Liferoot," Serlah said softly and passed him a board of grainy bark. He took it in silence and began dicing it fine as sand while she raised a pot to the fire. It was past dusk now and their lamp still flickered, but they wouldn't be bothered. The guards knew Serlah's importance in the stunted, anemic social structure of the orcs. She did a distastefully necessary job no one else but Sister Anna could or would do, so they would leave the dirty little hut be with its single lamp burning after curfew.

He finished and passed back the bark, and as she took it their eyes met. For the thousandth time they each recognized the mirror of their own weary despair. It wasn't like her to shed tears and she didn't now, but she couldn't look at him any longer and she squeezed her eyes shut. The liferoot scattered to the hard-packed floor where they would have to sweep it up later and use it, dirt and all. Lurigk stared at it for a minute and sighed, then scooted to sit closer to her and rested a hand on her thigh.

"We do well enough," he said quietly, though he didn't know what compelled him to make such an assertion. Surely it tempted the hand of fate to move against them again.

"Well enough," she nodded and opened her eyes. The pot boiled and she removed it, then took a pinch from the dusty liferoot and sprinkled it in carefully. "A little more than usual. The dirt will change the balance. Why do I keep healing people who only want to die."

She hadn't even the energy to make it a question. She'd been over it before: she might be just stubborn. It might have been because of the past, when she could think only of killing. These internal inquiries invariably ended in a blank wall of indifference. She simply didn't care; healing people was just what she did in this place.

"Because maybe they shouldn't want to die and somehow you know it," Lurigk said suddenly. She hadn't expected him to answer and she lifted her head to look at him. He was silent so often she'd grown used to it.

He almost seemed surprised at his own words, but he said, "If there ever is a time after this…" No, how could he allow himself to say such a thing? Expunge that from his thoughts, he'd always told himself, and maybe he could finally learn to be content if not happy. Despair crawled into the vacuum hope left behind. Leave no room for hope and there'd be no room for despair. No room to live…

Serlah took up a mortar and pestle. The zest of fresh silverleaf clouded around them and she thought as she worked. Lurigk was wrong; she knew of no such thing as a future in this place. But her own life force struggled somehow to lend strength and life to the failing, and why? What for? So they could live two more years here – three, ten, twenty – and then die just as miserably as they would have yesterday?

"We don't live because we don't want to," Lurigk spoke again. "We're some of the lucky ones, my love, because we have each other."

"If only we had been able to live as we should have." Their decisions, and their parents' before them, bore the blame for that. But there was the past again, informing everything. Always regrets and never hope, never believing anything good could still come.

"We still could." He frowned, and his brain tried to chase the sudden thought away. Irresponsible at best and horrifying and heartbreaking at worst; they'd both seen what could happen. Selfish, wrong. _No, not wrong_, he thought fiercely. Exactly the way the world was intended to continue in the face of all the worst trauma and horror.

Serlah was watching him closely now; she could see the thoughts passing across his face like clouds in the sky. For the first time in a very long while, she saw a tiny flicker of something besides blankness or sorrow. The warmth of it drew her in and she clutched at his arm, desperate not to see this new thing leave his eyes.

"What, please?" she whispered.

"A child," he replied, and he smiled.

A word, one tiny word, long left unsaid and un-thought of, but how different the air felt once it had left his lips. Something in her heart glowed warmer. He was right.

For the first time since she'd been little, Serlah wasted herbs that night. She knelt in the corner where they kept their tiny store of personal things and selected a cracked earthen jug full of cold brewed tea, a special tea she drank every night that kept her womb barren in this barren place. She tossed the contents out the doorway and let it run in rivulets across the filthy, narrow street.

* * *


	8. Juju

* * *

A/N: Warning: This is a mean little snippet.

* * *

Juju

*

"Not forever," she spat at him, but he wasn't really listening anymore. She was a sin'dorei; her kind had always had trouble thinking in terms of the spirit world, as far as he could tell. Jas'ka only grinned and let the knife delve deeper even as he ran his eyes down her slim, pale legs.

"Nah, mine forever. Already tried ta explain it to yah. Yah don' understand, it don' matter ta me, girly. Yah see soon enough."

She was dying slowly, but tonight it amused him, gave him time to torment her in non-physical ways in addition to his usual methods. It was only a pity she didn't seem to properly appreciate what he was doing to her. At least she would appreciate by now that she never should have tried to cross him.

Reaching beneath the ragged hole in her side, he dipped one finger delicately in the spreading scarlet pool.

"Yah see dis? Yah life. But not yah spirit. Dat's not yah life, but it's tied to it. Once yah life bleeds away, yah spirit got ta move on. Gets confused fo' a time. Longer if it don' properly know where it got ta go next. It's vulnerable." He leaned close. Her scent had changed from jasmine to fear and blood. He liked the new perfume better. For an instant he toyed with the idea of removing the dagger, doing what he could to patch her up to last a little longer. His eyes flickered again to the widening pool of blood and the notion passed. There would be others.

"Dere's pain if it gets confused fo' too long. Can yah imagine da pain o' bein' confused an' trapped fo' years?"

She tried to curse him but hadn't the strength for it. More crimson bubbled to her lips. He could _see_ the fear now in those bottomless, blazing green eyes; maybe now, so close to death, she finally understood and believed what he said. The eyes darted defiantly away from him but alighted on the thing that hung just above her head on the branch above, swaying gently, hypnotically in the night breeze. Her hand twitched as if trying to reach upward but fell back limply. Very slowly, her eyelids slid shut to douse the green fire.

Jas'ka muttered something and then his voice rose in a sing-song chant. His lids drooped but didn't shut, the black glitter fixing trancelike on the thing that hung overhead. A sigh of wind rose to stir his hair and set his beaded braids clacking. A moment later the troll stood, took a deep breath of the sharp mountain breeze, and sheathed his dagger. His raptor crooned a low greeting as he swung a gangly leg over its side.

Behind him, the light wind hissed through the branches of the tree and set a small, clay-beaded juju swaying gently. The small, maimed body below it would be gone before long, reclaimed into the cycle of life. What hung from the branch, Jas'ka knew, would linger.


	9. Mushrooms

* * *

Mushrooms

*

_-About twenty years ago_

_--  
_

"Let's go pick some mushrooms."

The little girl looked up sharply at her brother, toy elekk instantly forgotten on the floor in front of her. Whenever Gheris suggested something like that, Hyara listened. She nodded enthusiastically and bounded up from the floor.

As they passed out the door and beyond the range of their grandfather's shrewd gaze, Hyara pondered what adventure Gheris might have in mind this time. Picking mushrooms would only be the excuse to leave Azure Watch.

The day was cool and the sky was speckled with clouds. Likely there'd be no rain, but Gheris sniffed the breeze as they walked beyond the village's last house and into the surrounding woods. He could smell no tang of rain; only the faint salt of the sea. At his side, his sister skipped along. She moved with surprising grace and silence, however, despite her excitement. Gheris smiled to himself. She would not train to be a vindicator like he was, nor even become an anchorite like their grandfather. Hyara was a child who would grow up to feel most at home among Azeroth's wilds, he was sure.

She spoke suddenly in a hushed voice and her eyes darted eagerly up to his face. "What are we _really_ doing, Gheris?"

He raised an eyebrow and glanced at her. "We're picking mushrooms. Mother mentioned she needs some for dinner."

Hyara gaped at him in confusion for a moment and then she scowled. He meant it this time. "I don't want to pick stinky old mushrooms. I thought you meant we'd do something _special_."

With a silent sigh, Gheris only shook his head. Hyara made a face, but she didn't turn back for the village. Being out with her brother for just about any reason was still better than being stuck playing inside the house. Gheris must still be afraid Father would be angry again, like that time when her brother had sneaked her over to see the naga. That had been fun, and scary too. They hadn't gone very close at all, only close enough for a peek from a distance. They'd seen seventeen naga – Hyara had counted them carefully – with their scales all glinting and dazzling in the sun. They'd moved like snakes standing upright and they'd spoken to each other in a strange, hissy-growly language. She'd doubted at first it was a language at all, but Gheris had whispered that he thought they were saying something about a huge fish one of them had caught. Gheris was very good at languages that way and Hyara had been impressed enough that she'd wanted to stick around longer and see if she could hear something about the fish for herself. Her brother had said no, long enough or they might smell us. That had been scary because just then one of the naga had sniffed the air loudly. Gheris had picked her up right away and trotted back to the village; Hyara had stayed quiet the whole way, sensing her brother's sudden fear. When they'd returned, there had been Father about to set off in their direction. Somehow he'd known where they'd been. Father was a gentle man, amicable and good-natured as anyone could be, but Hyara had never seen anyone in such a towering rage as he had been then, as if he were facing off with one of his enemies in battle. Gheris hadn't taken her out of the village for weeks afterward.

"Fine," she pouted a little, but only a little. She couldn't blame him for not wanting to make Father so mad again.

They didn't have far to go; only a short way into the woods was a huge rotted trunk favored by the villagers for its abundance of mushrooms in the days after a rain. Gheris produced a sack from his pocket and Hyara wriggled partway inside one end of the log, plucking the biggest mushrooms she could reach and handing them out to her brother. She didn't mind getting dirty in here. She'd once seen someone crouching by the log, trying to knock the mushrooms out with a stick so they wouldn't have to crawl inside. That was silly and it ruined most of the delicate mushroom caps. There was nothing wrong with a little dirt.

She plucked out a good big one, the size of her palm, and waved it outside for her brother to take. He didn't take it right away, however, and she peeped out a rotted hole to see what he was doing. Gheris was standing up, frowning off through the trees, the bag slumped forgotten at his hooves.

"What?" Hyara hissed in a loud whisper, blue-white eyes wide. Maybe there were naga out there, even though they were closer here to the middle of the island than to the sea.

"There's someone off in the trees making a lot of racket. They might be hurt," he answered, then glanced down at her eyes glowing through the rotted wood. "Stay in there in case it's not safe, all right?"

Off he strode into the forest and Hyara watched him until the trees hid him from view. She could hear the noises too now that she was listening. There _was_ something out there, moaning and dragging around. Maybe tripping over rocks and roots. Gheris was big and strong, but what if it was a naga, or more than one? Naga were even bigger, and they might be stronger. Silently, Hyara wriggled back out of the log and crept to peer from behind the nearest tree. She still couldn't see her brother. Stalking cat-like from trunk to trunk, she followed his hoofprints across the forest floor. The moaning sounds grew louder, and then Gheris's big, confident form came into view, crouched on the ground beside another man. The man's skin was flushed and he was sweaty and bloody everywhere. Hyara squeaked in alarm and Gheris looked up.

"I told you to stay in the log," he said sternly. The shimmering gold of the Light flickered around his hands and spread across the injured man's skin. The man let out a sigh that turned into a groan and he said something Hyara couldn't hear. Gheris nodded and laid a reassuring hand on the man's arm. "I'm not skilled enough yet to help you much more. I'm going to get help, friend. Only a few minutes."

Gheris shepherded Hyara away, back through the trees toward the log.

"Where did he come from?" she asked in a whisper. "Did an animal get him?"

Her brother glanced behind uneasily, then around at the trees. "I don't think it was an animal, Hyara. I think it was a bad person. A Sunhawk."

"A Sunhawk–!" She frowned fiercely and clenched a little fist. Father had been fighting those mean blood elves for a few years now, since they'd come here. There weren't nearly as many around anymore, which was why she was allowed to leave the village at all, but they still popped up once in a while to hurt people. Mother said those blood elves had demons in their hearts, but Hyara didn't quite know what she meant by that.

"Yes," Gheris replied. "They're–"

But they both whirled around at a sound through the trees behind them. The injured man was barely visible in the filtered light of the forest. He lay prone, as Gheris had left him, but now his widened, pain-filled eyes were fixed on a new figure standing over him, gleaming in gold and red chain.

The Sunhawk had crept up silently on his fallen prey, the pursuit not abandoned despite the proximity to Azure Watch. Gold hair shimmered around his shoulders and vied even in the scant light with the sharp red of his armor. Long eyebrows twitched like feelers on his brow as the blood elf's face twisted into a cruel smile. His eyes smoldered fel-green. The helpless draenei gurgled a cry and struggled feebly to raise himself.

Hyara heard the snick of the blood elf's blade unsheathed and saw the sudden, lightning-flash of silver plunge downward before Gheris's hand clamped across her eyes. There was a wet sound through the trees and another gurgle, then her brother's heavy, rapid breath was the only thing she could hear. He lifted her and she felt his long strides carrying them toward the safety of the village. His hand still covered her eyes but she didn't want to look at anything anyway.

Finally he set her down outside the nearest little house and she stared up at him through a curtain of tears, wide-eyed and frightened.

Gheris knelt in front of her and offered a wan, grim smile. "Run home, Hyara," he said quietly. "Find Father and tell him what happened. Tell him I've gone back."

She nodded and wiped a sleeve across her face. Gheris rose, loosened his sword in its sheath, and then he was running back the way they had come. As he disappeared into the trees, Hyara dashed away through the village streets and up the hill home.

The Sunhawks, Prophet Velen said, were not representative of their people. But Hyara had only heard of one other race that so enjoyed the sight of blue draenei blood on the ground.

* * *


	10. By Netherlight

**A/N**: This was my submission to Blizz's writing contest that ran... wow, almost a year ago now. It didn't win, but I'm rather fond of it. Bloodscry is long finished posting and I felt like resurfacing here for a bit, so I'm adding this to Days even though it doesn't strictly involve any of my main characters. Girsha does in fact make a brief appearance in one of my stories, however, and although she isn't named, she does have a few lines of dialogue. Hint: her taste runs to trolls on occasion.

As for other projects, namely the In a Dark Place rewrite, I honestly haven't had a smidgen of time to write more than a few lines on it since the baby was born. For those who are disappointed I apologize, and please know that I would love love love to get back to it eventually. I'm still holding out hope so you should too.

* * *

A pale gold sunset washed thin by the nether-light, and then Girsha watched Draenor plunge into night. Still she sat motionless and let the small chirps and rustles of Nagrand's night noises rise around her. Her orcish eyes could pick out the dark shapes of birds darting in the grove nearby. The long grass bent in a breeze just risen from the Halaani Basin, whispering past her ears and slowly cooling the boulder she'd chosen for her seat.

Night here told a story that Girsha didn't fully understand, but she listened all the more intently for that. It told her, in fragments, of when Draenor was unbroken and her people unbowed. She had grown fond of coming here, to her favorite spot, to hear a little more of that story every night she could.

Only the brightest stars could compete with the nether, and she watched as they swung higher in a countercurrent to the flow of the sky's wild energy. It was beautiful, a sight she'd grown to love and find familiar, but it was also a reminder of what had happened here. So unlike Azeroth's clean, starry sky with its double moons. She wondered if Draenor's sky had once looked that way, or if it had had more stars, or fewer. Sometimes she envied the older Mag'har for their memories, although many of them seemed to think of the memories as a curse. Some had grown very bitter with the knowledge of what they had lost. But there were a few who would talk to her, and she'd soon learned which ones.

Greatmother Geyah was one of those. Girsha had been afraid to approach her at first, intimidated by the woman's wisdom and age, the respect she commanded among all orcs. Even the illness had been intimidating; Girsha hadn't believed herself worthy to waste what little time might be left to the old woman. But the Greatmother had seen the shifty, sheepish eagerness in the girl's eyes and had soon gotten the whole story out of her. Greatmother Geyah had a way of making people tell exactly what they were about. And to Girsha's delight, Geyah had returned the favor.

It had been the Greatmother's initial suggestion, months ago, that Girsha head into the wilds near sunset and now listen to what the land, instead of its people, could tell her about Draenor's past. Girsha had been incredulous. She was a warrior by training, had never shown any interest in or inclination for the magic arts. What could someone not skilled in the ways of a shaman or a druid learn by listening to the land? Yet she couldn't do anything but take the suggestion. The Greatmother had been listening to Draenor's voice her whole life; who was Girsha, some scruffy Azeroth whelp, to question?

So she had come here, a place found by lucky chance, near the edge of the basin west of Garadar. Tonight the town's fires were a distant flicker of orange, barely visible on the rise to the east, and no competition with the wild, unrestrained river of milky light above her. Girsha laid back on her rock and pressed her palms against the sun-warmed surface, imagining what a shaman might feel here. The air sighing around her, the distant rush of the water far below, all the life that stirred at night, and then the steady, beating rumble of the earth…

With her stomach leaping, she shot upright. For a wild moment she believed she had actually felt it, the earth beneath her, but then the seasoned warrior in her sternly grabbed hold of a runaway fancy and revealed the truth – she'd heard hoof beats approaching down the narrow path that ran nearby. With the silence of a tiger, Girsha slipped off the boulder and crouched in its shadow.

The hooves belonged to a horse, and the horse belonged to a human, obviously a man. He rounded the grove at a canter and then pulled to a halt to look out over the empty, dark air of the basin and the nether-washed hills beyond. Girsha could hardly blame him, since she'd just been admiring the view herself, but she hissed to herself in annoyance and sent a plea to the ancestors that he wouldn't decide the boulder would make an even better vantage point.

Apparently the thought had crossed his mind, however. The human took a careful look around, still missing the orc hovering motionless in the shadows, and then swung himself down from his horse. To Girsha's horror, he led the animal to a nearby bush and tied it there, saw to its water, and then began untying a pack and a bedroll from the saddle. He obviously planned on doing more than simply pausing a moment for the view.

At least the horse hadn't smelled her; she was still downwind. Humans were notoriously bad sniffers, and not always particularly observant. Maybe he was tired. Maybe she could just melt away toward the nearby copse of trees once he was occupied making his camp, and then she could make the usual hike back to Garadar. He wouldn't notice a thing, as long as she was quiet…

Girsha, however, had never put much stock in moving quietly, as most warriors didn't. Even in only simple leather clothing she was not particularly light of foot. As soon as the man's back was turned and she moved from behind the shelter of the boulder, her feet crunched deafeningly in the long grass and the human whirled with a blade in hand. She froze, hands raised before her and empty. All she'd carried tonight was a small hunting knife at her belt, a decision for which she now cursed herself. So close to Garadar in a place she knew well, she hadn't anticipated a complication such as this.

*

Night had fallen fast; so fast he'd barely realized until it was upon him. Even the sunset had failed to register in his mind, wrapped as he was in his thoughts of that day and the day before. It had been a bit of a shock when Sandor Lesham had finally realized where he was and just how close was the Horde town of Garadar. A less than ideal condition under which to camp for the night, but riding in the dark would only be worse. He would stop now and be up before dawn to move on safely.

The air was already cooling as he turned his gelding off the main road to a thin, little-used trail that meandered toward the basin. No one would come here in the dark, so close to the edge, he reckoned. As he reached the cliff, the mysterious beauty of the night held his eyes and he stopped motionless to take in the view of the basin and the sky. It was remarkable, he thought, the way parts of this world still managed to hold onto their identity, while other parts seemed to have been blasted apart and twisted until there was nothing left of what they had been. This view of Nagrand must have looked much the same a thousand years ago, except for the restless magic in the sky. But there was no ignoring the difference the nether made – it threw its shifting cast on everything and glazed the whole night in eerie light Nagrand never would have seen otherwise. Sandor shivered as he dismounted and started his preparations for the night's supper and sleep.

It was another moment before he realized he wasn't alone on the cliff's edge. The soft rustle of a boot in grass followed by an almost imperceptible drawing of breath like a gasp, and Sandor spun around with a dagger raised. His eyes met the dark eyes of an orc woman standing no more than ten paces away, frozen in the act of creeping from behind the nearby boulder. For a few heartbeats, they both simply stared in the way of two predators surprised by an unexpected encounter in some dark hunting ground. She raised her hands very slowly and he saw that she was unarmed, not even dressed for combat. His eyes darted over the ground near them with new purpose, and now he also saw that there were no signs of a camp or even a mount. Likely she had walked here from Garadar, come, perhaps, for the beauty of the view. An innocent purpose, then. Relaxing very slightly but still watching with a wary eye, Sandor lowered his dagger.

The human hadn't sprung to the attack as Girsha had been prepared for, her experience of them telling her that they were rather hasty beings, but she still didn't believe she would get far if she turned her back to walk away. She let her hands fall to her sides and slid a foot backward to begin a slow retreat toward the safety of the trees.

"I came for meditation and I am leaving now," she said softly, not believing he would understand her, but simply because it sounded civil and might give her a better chance of getting away without a fight.

As expected, her words drew a blank look, but he replied something in Common. She could match none of it with the tiny catalogue of words she knew in his language, but the gesture he made next was unmistakable. He pointed at her, then swept a hand around to encompass the coruscating sky and the dappled darkness of the cleft below and the fields beyond. The human at least understood what would draw her out here. Something about that raised her curiosity. Girsha nodded cautiously and her feet paused their backward shuffle.

Very slowly, the knife snicked back into its sheath at his belt. "Don't leave on my account," he said with a shrug and no small measure of irony. Of course she would. But he'd disturbed her, and he felt a little guilty for that. Clearly it was a spot she was familiar with, if she came here with such confidence that she would meet no one else. He paused as he carefully lowered one of his bundles to the ground. Should he leave now? No doubt she would return to Garadar, might even come back better armed and with friends. His eyes flicked back to her and he realized she had stopped. Instead of slipping away as quickly as possible, she was now watching him closely. Perhaps she still meant to try something on her own, even unarmed as she was. The thought only filled Sandor with weariness and he shook his head.

"Don't try it," he sighed. "I might look tired, but between the two of us, I'm still the one with the blades. I wouldn't like to have to kill you for no real reason."

She surprised him again, though. In a mirror of his own motion from a moment before, she pointed at him, then swept her hand around at the view. He smiled tightly and nodded, then mimed sleep as well. She pointed at the flat rock. He raised his eyebrows, thinking that a convenient, visible pedestal was the last place he'd choose to sleep out here. No, he would stick with the high grass, thank you, Madam Orc.

That reminded him. Since they'd gotten this far without killing each other, they might as well make introductions. "Sandor," he said, placing a hand on his chest.

An interesting step, to reveal his name. Girsha's eyes narrowed as she debated the prudence of reciprocating the gesture. What harm could it do, though? She pointed to herself. "Girsha."

They stared another moment, awkwardly, two people normally enemies plunged into an odd encounter that seemed too mundane to warrant any hostility. Then the human hefted the pack he'd just dropped and Girsha saw he meant to leave. She held up her hands and shook her head.

"No sense leaving now, human. I'm going. Sleep instead."

His eyes glimmered with faint recognition and he repeated in Orcish, "Sleep." He smiled grimly.

"Yes, sleep," Girsha said, surprised. But she caught the flicker of his glance toward the distant lights of Garadar and then she realized what the problem was. He was likely afraid she'd return with backup, now she knew where he'd be all night. She sighed. So much distrust here, and nothing either one of them had done even warranted it. It was exactly the way she would have thought, though, had their positions been reversed.

She might still reassure him, though. Pointing at the distant fires, she said, "Garadar. Girsha sleep." She mimed the rest of it and looked at him expectantly. To her delight, the human nodded. He understood what she said, but did he believe her? "Going back there to sleep," she said slowly. "Not fight." With a gesture toward his daggers, she shook her head adamantly and held her hands away, palms facing him, in mock horror.

"Ah, I see," Sandor said. Why did he persist in talking to her when she couldn't understand a word? He knew his brother would have been quick to point out the absurdity, but somehow it still seemed like the civilized thing to do. There was an orderliness of thinking that came with speech, that staved off the animal and savage. "You are going to Garadar, but you plan on sleeping just as I do. I suppose I'm to take it that means you have no plans to organize a hunting party."

She was still staring, and he wondered why she hadn't left yet. The thought crossed his mind that she might well be curious about him. He had invaded her private sunset-viewing spot, after all. Perhaps he owed her something; rent for the night, as it were. A smile quirked his lips and he let the bag back down to the ground.

"Alright, then. A parting gift because you didn't ambush me and put that tiny knife through my heart before I knew you were here."

Girsha watched him with mild trepidation as he reached inside the pack at his feet. His movements were slow and deliberate, unthreatening, so she held her ground with only the slightest unconscious baring of her tusks to indicate her unease. The human, Sandor, drew out something that flashed in the nether-light, but not in the way of a blade.

Sandor didn't even have to rummage; the thing he wanted was right at the top of his pack. He picked it out and slowly, carefully, held it at arm's length, inviting her to take it. It was a gold armband, crudely but still quite beautifully etched in twining vines across the surface. Undoubtedly it was worth something, but Sandor had no need of the gold. He would be more than a little glad to get it out of his possession, in fact. All the better to give it to someone who would appreciate it, as he thought this orc woman would.

Cautiously, Girsha stepped forward a few paces. It was some sort of ornamental bauble, which she ordinarily had no use for, but in this case she appreciated the gesture as one of… not friendship, but at least truce and maybe respect. They had reached an understanding, the human was saying, and there was no harm meant on either side.

As she came closer, however, her nose caught something odd. For a moment she couldn't place the smell – an acrid tang that seemed familiar and unwelcome, and although it was faint, the human was definitely the source. Where had she smelled it…?

And then her mind abruptly called up the right images. She was standing at the Dark Portal, just arrived from Azeroth. The Peninsula's fel-scorched wind swirled around her and whispered of a world twisted apart at the seams. Then later, in Shadowmoon Valley, ducking desperately for cover with the thud and hiss of infernal stones falling around her. What she smelled now was the same taint that sometimes, when the wind was blowing just so, wafted upward from the Cleft of Shadow in Orgrimmar.

"Warlock," Girsha hissed, and Sandor had no trouble understanding that word. He'd heard it a thousand times in perhaps a dozen languages, spat in just the same tone of revulsion.

His arm dropped to his side, the gold band forgotten. He looked at her for a moment with her pale green face twisted in fear and disgust, and then he nodded curtly. Yes, it was true, much though he usually tried to hide it out of courtesy for others and, sometimes, fear for his own safety. She must have smelled it on him, as he'd found the races with more sensitive noses often did. He wondered if now she would reconsider her decision not to return with a posse seeking his blood.

"No harm," he said distinctly and then backed away toward his horse, which by this time was snorting softly in sleep. He'd have to wake the poor animal and move on for a while now until he'd found another safe spot. But the orc had now turned away, keeping one disgusted and fearful eye on him, and he saw that she at last truly meant to leave.

"I'm sorry," he sighed. And he really was. Over the years he'd grown used to violent reactions from some who discovered his secret identity immediately, but the sting was always far worse when the rejection came from someone he'd spoken with amiably at first. There'd been people before, good acquaintances who might have grown into friends, who one day for whatever ill-fated reason had discovered his secret and then had suddenly turned cold and never spoken to him again. He'd grown used to it and had even begun to expect it. Here was just another example of the curse that followed him around.

With the gelding saddled and his bags repacked, Sandor set off again to skirt the cliff in the nether-washed night. As he sent a last look toward the faint orange blur of Garadar on the horizon, he spied a distant dark figure crossing the last field.

"Goodbye, Girsha," he said quietly.

*

There'd been a distinct feeling of reluctance to return to the spot the next evening, but Girsha had shoved it aside a little angrily. It was her spot. No warlock, or the mere memory of that odd encounter, could take it from her.

But she'd set out a little later than usual, perhaps because of the reluctance, or maybe because of an irrational fear that he'd still be there if she went too early. Ridiculous, of course; he'd most likely moved on last night after she'd left, afraid she'd break her word and come back with her blade. As it happened, she'd gone straight to bed upon her return and had told no one about him, not even the Greatmother the next day. A warlock _would_ think she'd break her word, of course; faithless, destructive creatures, bent only on the suffering of others and the enslavement of any spirit they came across…

He hadn't been like that, though. She hadn't even realized he was a warlock until she'd smelled the fel taint on him, and then it had been faint. He'd been respectful and polite. Honorable. These were words her mind never would have ascribed to one of his kind if she hadn't seen it for herself.

As she topped the low rise that led up to the cliff's edge and wove her way through the grove, sunset was bleeding gold across the horizon. Slowly the nether-light began exerting its dominance over Nagrand's watercolor hills and fields, turning everything blue and silver and purple. The air whispered with the first night breeze. Girsha strode the last paces to her rock. Only the grass and the darting birds moved; only the wind and the insects called to her. The land was at peace again with no taint of the warlock to trouble this place.

A glint caught her eye, though, as she boosted herself to the warm seat of the boulder, and with an odd leaping feeling in her stomach she reached down to a cleft in the tumble of smaller boulders piled beside her. Her fingers closed around cool metal. For a while she stared at the gold band with the ivy leaves, a peace offering rejected at first but nonetheless left carefully for her to find. The nether flashed on the engraved surface and for a moment she considered hurling it away over the cliff. But he'd smiled and he'd talked to her even though she couldn't understand; he could easily have hurt or killed her, especially in his initial startlement, but he hadn't. He could have used his foul magic against her, but she'd never felt a glimmer of it. The night around her moved on as usual and the land's voice still spoke pure in her heart. The human, Sandor, had left no imprint of evil on this sacred place. Girsha slid the band around her wrist and laid back to gaze up at the river of light above her.


End file.
